Ninja Book-Fairy Emma Watson Left Books & Handwritten Notes Around NYC For International Women's Day

March 10, 2017, 9:38 a.m.

"By the time we got up to her she was snapping pictures of the books she had just laid out,."

Sara Lewin Lebwohl

Back in November, Emma Watson snuck around the city stashing Maya Angelou's book Mom and Me and Mom inside various subway stations as part of the feminist book project, Our Shared Shelf (video documenting this was only released this week). It seems that the self-proclaimed "ninja book-fairy" returned to the city on Wednesday to perform a few more random acts of book-giving, heading to statues of various famous women to drop off books and handwritten notes in honor of International Women's Day.

Today I'm a red-striking ninja book-fairy out to spread some wise women's words. Happy International Women's Day! @bookfairiesworldwide #IWDOurSharedShelf #IWD #ADayWithoutAWoman
A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Mar 8, 2017 at 1:26pm PST

Watson teamed up with the Book Fairies, a non-profit that promotes literacy through a shared book program, for the latest project, leaving over 1,000 books various places worldwide (in addition to Angelou's book, she left others including Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman). Watson, decked out in a red beret, documented her busy day on Instagram, posting videos from the Harriet Tubman Memorial at St. Nicholas Avenue and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem; the Joan of Arc Memorial in Riverside Park; the Gertrude Stein Monument in Bryant Park; and The Eleanor Roosevelt Monument near W. 72nd Street also in Riverside Park.

Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright and art collector. She was a leading figure in modernism in literature and art in the early 20th century. She wrote Tender Buttons and Three Lives, as well as work dealing with homosexual themes ✊️📚 #IWD #IWDOurSharedShelf #ADayWithoutAWoman @bookfairiesworldwide
A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Mar 8, 2017 at 5:19pm PST

The statue of French patriot and saint Joan of Arc was sculpted by a woman, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, in 1915. It was the very first statue depicting a non-fictional woman in NYC and was the only one until the 1980s ✊️📚 #IWD #IWDOurSharedShelf #ADayWithoutAWoman @bookfairiesworldwide
A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Mar 8, 2017 at 5:18pm PST

Harriet Tubman was an American abolitionist and humanitarian. Born into slavery in 1822, she escaped and subsequently rescued around seventy enslaved families and friends. After the American civil war she became an active participant in the struggle for women’s suffrage ✊️📚 #IWD #IWDOurSharedShelf #ADayWithoutAWoman @bookfairiesworldwide
A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Mar 8, 2017 at 5:05pm PST

Sara Lewin Lebwohl was walking her dog Prince (you may remember him from such Gothamist videos as this one) near the Roosevelt statue when they spotted Watson and her bodyguard.

Eleanor Roosevelt was the longest-serving First Lady in US history and she later served as the US delegate to the United Nations. She was the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and also oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ✊️📚 #IWD #IWDOurSharedShelf #ADayWithoutAWoman @bookfairiesworldwide
A post shared by Emma Watson (@emmawatson) on Mar 8, 2017 at 5:25pm PST

"By the time we got up to her she was snapping pictures of the books she had just laid out," she said. "So we just stood next to her and let her do her art. She motioned for us to get involved and take a book, then jumped in her car. Since we were the only ones there we got to take our time with the pics and book."

You can see the note Watson left up above, and a picture of Prince (with Rajiv Surendra, who happens to be Kevin G from Mean Girls) in the book circle below.

Sara Lewin Lebwohl

Ninja Book-Fairy Emma Watson Left Books & Handwritten Notes Around NYC For International Women's Day

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